Gutter Guards

Stephen Westerfield · **Posted:** Wed May 08, 2013 10:13 am

Shopping for new gutter guards for our house on a fairly heavily wooded lot and looking for brand or style recommendations. We have all kinds of stuff falling from the trees, acorns, pine cones/needles, leaves of all various kinds and sizes as well as all this pollen crap as of late. It seems from reading online that nothing is completely maintenance free, but does anyone have something they've tried that keeps the maintenance level relatively low (once a year)?

JamesMilko · **Posted:** Wed May 08, 2013 11:46 am

I'm interested in this too. I have some kind of guards on there now but pine needles completely defeat them. I'd need to be on the roof once a month if I wanted to keep them clear.

MikeWhitney · **Joined:** Wed Aug 20, 2003 9:15 pm **Posts:** 4724

I've been testing in one spot on my house with "Gutter Filtration" from Sams Club and it actually seems to work really well. Just like these:

http://www.amazon.com/GutterStuff-5-Inc ... Filtration

However, I have a guy who will climb my insanely pitched roof and do both the garage and house for $50, so I'm not in a hurry to do them all, especially with how expensive they are.

RobLupella · **Posted:** Wed May 08, 2013 1:02 pm

MikeWhitney wrote:

I've been testing in one spot on my house with "Gutter Filtration" from Sams Club and it actually seems to work really well. Just like these:

http://www.amazon.com/GutterStuff-5-Inc ... Filtration

However, I have a guy who will climb my insanely pitched roof and do both the garage and house for $50, so I'm not in a hurry to do them all, especially with how expensive they are.

Let me know who does your gutters. I need to have new ones put up and don't want to go climbing on roof anymore

Cash Davidson · **Posted:** Wed May 08, 2013 3:13 pm

My house is also in the woods (Wake FOREST!).

I got sick of dealing with the gutters - my 28' extention ladder doesn't reach the eaves on the back. So I had The Aluminum Co of NC install new seamless gutters, downspouts and their gutter helmets. They guarantee you will not need to cleaning them for as long as you own the house. If you need them cleaned, call them and they will clean them for you.

I had it done about 7yrs ago. After 4yrs, the gutter on the garage plugged up. I called them. They came out within a week and cleaned ALL the gutters. I checked them during our recent rains - no problems. Highly recommended!

Cash

DickRasmussen · **Posted:** Wed May 08, 2013 6:01 pm

These work (since 2006 so far)!

http://www.leafguard.com/?gclid=CMaNoIn ... 4AodflkAng

Stephen Westerfield · **Posted:** Wed May 08, 2013 6:15 pm

I've seen the leaf guard and the gutter helmets. They are rather proud of those products. $1500 is the starting price to do my entire house (about 100 feet of gutter give or take 10 feet).

I got a quote to do my whole house with Gutter Rx for about $700. Anyone have experience with this stuff?

http://www.gutterrx.com/ 20 year no clog warranty

Cash Davidson · **Posted:** Thu May 09, 2013 11:14 am

Stephen Westerfield wrote:

I've seen the leaf guard and the gutter helmets. They are rather proud of those products. $1500 is the starting price to do my entire house (about 100 feet of gutter give or take 10 feet).

I got a quote to do my whole house with Gutter Rx for about $700. Anyone have experience with this stuff?

http://www.gutterrx.com/ 20 year no clog warranty

I don't understand how these are "Self-Cleaning". I can see how the gutter and downspout won't clog, but seems like the mesh would eventually get covered up by pine needles, leaves and those fuzzy oak pods.

BTW, mine are the same as the Leaf-Guard mentioned by Dick.

Cash

Vincent Keene · **Posted:** Thu May 09, 2013 12:13 pm

DickRasmussen wrote:

These work (since 2006 so far)!

http://www.leafguard.com/?gclid=CMaNoIn ... 4AodflkAng

I have no doubt the above likely don't clogged, however it essentially just reduces the gutter width right? IOW, if the standard gutter was only 1/2" wide it probably wouldn't get clogged either, but it seems that it wouldn't provide a large enough channel for the volume of water. I guess it depends on the type of rain we are talking about. A typical late afternoon summer storm dumping a lot of water quickly like we get here in NC, or a light drizzle like in WA where they really don't even need gutters.

I basically have no trees at my house so I have no dog in this fight. I'm just interested in learning how it works.

Cash Davidson · **Posted:** Thu May 09, 2013 1:19 pm

Vincent Keene wrote:

DickRasmussen wrote:

These work (since 2006 so far)!

http://www.leafguard.com/?gclid=CMaNoIn ... 4AodflkAng

I have no doubt the above likely don't clogged, however it essentially just reduces the gutter width right? IOW, if the standard gutter was only 1/2" wide it probably wouldn't get clogged either, but it seems that it wouldn't provide a large enough channel for the volume of water. I guess it depends on the type of rain we are talking about. A typical late afternoon summer storm dumping a lot of water quickly like we get here in NC, or a light drizzle like in WA where they really don't even need gutters.

I basically have no trees at my house so I have no dog in this fight. I'm just interested in learning how it works.

It works due to the surface tension of water - causing the water to follow the contour of the helmet and drop into the gutter. Even in a heavy downpour, very little water shoots past the gap. I have one spot where mine doesn't work in a very heavy rain - where an upper roof leader dumps onto my lower roof. In a downpour it shoots out like a fire hose and then shoots right off the lower roof. I think most gutter folks say don't dump water from one roof to another, but I didn't want the downspout going thru my deck.

Vincent Keene · **Posted:** Thu May 09, 2013 1:34 pm

Cash Davidson wrote:

It works due to the surface tension of water - causing the water to follow the contour of the helmet and drop into the gutter. Even in a heavy downpour, very little water shoots past the gap.

Interesting. Is there a video of this somewhere?

Cash Davidson · **Posted:** Thu May 09, 2013 1:45 pm

Vincent Keene wrote:

Cash Davidson wrote:

It works due to the surface tension of water - causing the water to follow the contour of the helmet and drop into the gutter. Even in a heavy downpour, very little water shoots past the gap.

Interesting. Is there a video of this somewhere?

Click on the link provided by Dick and scroll down. :thumbsup:

Andrew Jonell · **Joined:** Mon Mar 23, 2009 6:43 pm **Posts:** 1350

Cash Davidson wrote:

Click on the link provided by Dick and scroll down. :thumbsup:

Do they work with pine needles? I was kind of surprised how far pine needles got in the HVAC in the Miata.

Vincent Keene · **Posted:** Thu May 09, 2013 2:29 pm

Cash Davidson wrote:

Vincent Keene wrote:

Cash Davidson wrote:

It works due to the surface tension of water - causing the water to follow the contour of the helmet and drop into the gutter. Even in a heavy downpour, very little water shoots past the gap.

Interesting. Is there a video of this somewhere?

Click on the link provided by Dick and scroll down. :thumbsup:

Ack! Missed that. Thanks. :oops:

Les Davis · **Joined:** Fri Aug 29, 2003 2:04 pm **Posts:** 2059

Vincent Keene wrote:

Cash Davidson wrote:

It works due to the surface tension of water - causing the water to follow the contour of the helmet and drop into the gutter. Even in a heavy downpour, very little water shoots past the gap.

Interesting. Is there a video of this somewhere?

This is what I put on my Raleigh house a few years back, it was pricey, but arguably worth it when you live in a forest like that house is. Its really amazing how they work, I had my doubts, but they really do allow the vast majority of the water to go into the gutter and the design also allows most of the leaves and various other tree junk to wash right off the top, I think this would be the main difference between leaf guard and the other options. Whether its worth it or not is entirely up to you. The Florida house has far fewer trees, and the leaves don't fall of the trees down here like they do in NC, however, I do have one big tree on one corner of the house that will likely clog up that gutter, I'm thinking of using some of the spongy stuff on that side after seeing it on sale at Costco today.

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